Castletown Community welcome Ukrainian family
Right across the District of Ireland, Great Britain and Malta, Lasallians are doing their bit to help those affected by the war in Ukraine.
The Community in Castletown in Co Laois is also playing their part by welcoming a Ukrainian family, and Br. Kevin McEvoy explains how it all came about.
On March 15th I received a phone call with a simple request: “Would you be prepared to take in a Ukrainian family or two for about six months?” The call came from John O’Neill, the personal driver of Sean Fleming, our local TD.
I already knew the answer, but I asked him to come and visit the Pastoral Centre apartment which is on the top floor over the kitchen. John duly turned up on the morning of St Patrick’s Day and was very pleased with the accommodation. Over the next few days, Linda, Margaret and PJ worked hard at making the space as homely as possible and on March 28th, four Ukrainians were brought here and we made them as welcome as possible.
All four of them come from Poltava a city of just under 300,000 in Central Ukraine: they are Nataliia Lantsova and her two children Yaraslov (15) and Viktorija (11) and a third year university student (international Economics), Yuliia Pukhliakova (20) who befriended the family while they awaited news of their placement in Poland.
Yuliia has some English which is very helpful - otherwise we resort to Madame Google Translate! Viktorija attends the local primary school while Yaraslov gets the school bus which takes him into the secondary school in Mountrath. There are other Ukrainian families being accommodated in two other houses across the road from us. Altogether, there are just under 20 people from Ukraine staying in Castletown - surely, a good example for the rest of the country.
It was very heartening to see people turn up with offers of food and clothing for our guests. One kind lady handed in a very generous voucher for Dunnes Stores, while another family came with clothing and toys and it was lovely to see the little girl give her precious soft toy (a unicorn) to Viktorija.
Of course, our guests were here for the night of the census (3 April) and it will be recorded for posterity that on that night, instead of being in their own home in Poltava, Ukraine, they were in our house in Castletown - and I was privileged to join them that evening as they sat for their traditional Ukrainian borscht - it was smachno - very tasty!
Right now, the challenge for us is to give them sufficient time and space to settle in and to be family albeit in a very different setting.
A local family bring donations to Castletown